I stood there, leaning on the stone guardrail of the unfinished road by the sea, water crashing upon the seawall, sky transitioning into a burst of hues – peach, cherry, flame. The deteriorating, faux gold replica of Michelangelo’s David stood proudly behind me; his eyes towards the horizon, perhaps watching me, too. I reminisced the countless times I had seen the blood flow from my flesh, from every notch of the blade marking every day and degree of suffering. In the ninth grade, it started with a couple of shallow ones just because of a petty argument about failing grades, thin as a strand of hair, yet it stung like a papercut. Slowly, I grew accustomed to seeing my own blood out of my veins as though it were never meant to be kept in.
I imagined death to be a dream, but not because I believed in a heaven or reincarnation. It was a dream because it was nothingness. It was freedom from a world that always had something. I wanted to escape the world that was slowly being consumed by fire. The same one from which all civilization began. The plight of people hopelessly toiling in a system that let the rich buy hectares of land for revenue while everyone else could barely pay rent or witness their makeshift houses torn down for business or estates became mine, too. The woes of others burdened me. I heard them, looked them in the eyes, with my dull eyes. Sad, hopeless eyes.
I thought that nothing could be done to save us.